Philip Roth? He makes me want to chuck a bucket of water over my head, says judge

When an author wins a prestigious literary prize, the awards ceremony is an
occasion for backslapping and abundant praise.

In a rare interview, Roth was dismissive of Callil and other critics who accuse him of misogynyPhoto: AP

By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor

7:00AM BST 29 Jun 2011

It is not usual for a judge to admit that he wants the author to shut up or that his work makes readers want to throw a bucket of water over their own heads.

Yet that was how the chairman of last night's Man Booker International Prize panel described the work of Philip Roth, the US writer who has proved to be the most divisive winner in the history of the £60,000 award.

The ceremony marked the end of a calamitous period that saw John Le Carré withdraw his book from the shortlist and one of the three judges, Carmen Callil, resign in protest at Roth's win for his latest book, Nemesis.

Callil did not attend the prize-giving and nor did Roth, 78, who pleaded ill health and remained at home in Connecticut.

Rick Gekoski, the writer and book dealer who chaired the judging panel, spoke about Roth's work, which includes Goodbye, Columbus, The Human Stain and the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Pastoral.

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"I can recall few of his novels that don't provoke an occasional but overwhelming desire to shout, 'Will you shut up!' at a character or his author," he told the assembled audience at London's Banqueting House. Reading his work induces an urge to "put the book down, pace about, sit down [and] chuck a pail of water over our heads".

Yet Gekoski insisted that Nemesis, which explored the effects of a polio epidemic in a 1944 North American community, was a "masterpiece" and that his deliberately provocative style makes the reader "positively anxious to come out for the next round".

He also acknowledged the drama that surrounded the prize when Callil, founder of the feminist Virago press, resigned. She dismissed Roth's work as "Emperor's new clothes" and complained that he "goes on and on and on about the same subject... as though he's sitting on your face and you can't breathe".

Gekoski said: "When you judge a literary prize, taste and judgment collide, egos can be bruised, and a prestigious award is at stake," adding that the judging process had been "animated by disagreement, like a family in a Philip Roth novel".

In a rare interview, Roth was dismissive of Callil and other critics who accuse him of misogyny. "I take notice of it but I think it's cuckoo. I think they don't know what they're talking about," he told BBC Radio 4's Front Row. "I'm delighted with this prize. It stirred up all this interest in me."

While he did not attend in person - Roth seldom leaves the US, dividing his time between homes in Connecticut and Manhattan - he recorded a short film in which he read the final pages of Nemesis.

He said the pages represented "the end of the line after 31 books", which some took as a hint that he has written his final novel. However, he said in his interview that he is working on another.

"I'd like to have one big, final idea, one big book to work on until the day I die," he said.